Early Spring AUXERRE
In the early of spring, rain in the North comes down heavy but the sound doesn't bother the ears. It could be mother natures way of choosing not to disturb her creatures. Even the boy, laying on the partially worn out couch was sleeping soundly to the rain.
But the pins and needles that crawled up his arm that was under his torso for longer than needed caused a break in his slumber. Eyes adjusted to the dim natural lighting and focused on the window. Close to his head he could see the blurred trees, close together and beyond over their tips, grey sky's, so oblique with clouds that it just looked like one gloomy, grey colored sky. It didn't take long for the boy to realize where he woke up wasn't familiar at all. At best, it looked like the house from the stilts but bigger and more organized, a house for one.
It was a sudden burst of awareness, his position embracing the couch. He looked around, it was dark cabin with yellow illuminating lights in the corner. In front of his was a small open room with a rustic kitchen, a old cast iron wood stove that doubled as a heat source, and piles of chopped wood on the other side of the kitchen. Behind the fire place was a window that fit the wall frame. Above the open room was a second floor that was lead by wood stairs. If he wasn't so still, behind the railing was a small bedroom. He stood in the living room. A red rug next to the sofa he was sitting on and another chair that was the same material as the couch, old and cotton, but instead of grey, brown. The curtains was white wool with red, green and blue tips, but weren't completely shut so it illuminated the room with natural lighting and scenery he wouldn't find in Summerton.
As soon as he realize there was nothing in the house and that he was alone in an unfamiliar place, he got up slowly and balanced himself to think clearly. He felt different before but his memory was blocked off. He remembered running through the hidden halls, filled with water. He remembered a sharp pain in his back but nothing was put together. His brain was an unfinished puzzle.
Before he could search around or even think logically like he would in a situation, he heard a creaking door from behind and decided his best option was to run out of the house.
The rain was heavy as expected, like small pebbles that hits his head and bare arms. He had no shoes and though his body temperature wouldn't be bothered from the northern wind, the rain would cause some annoyance to the light clothing he still had on in Archeon.
His surrounding wasn't something he was used to because most of it was dense forest. Pine trees and big oaks that clumped together that made a leading pathway a dark void. The rain made it no better either. The boy's hair was drenched and was falling into his eyes, hands wiping the rain from his face.
He saw the road but he also felt a presences among him. He turned his back to get closer to the noise.
"Hey!"
It was girl, in a dark rain coat, staring down at the boy with anger but also concern. She looked at him and the girl steady herself as if ready to run away or charge.
"Who are you." His voice was loud, filled with anger and confusion.
She didn't answer but instead clenched her fist and the other one rubbing her finger nail against her palm. It was something he used to do as a kid when he didn't know what to do.
"Where am I?" He was walking toward the girl, large steps and she backed up a little holding her ground. It wasn't until he wasn't stopping and his body was closer to her than she thought.
"Hey. Hey!" Her warning wasn't enough because his charge sent her knocking to the ground and his hands were wrapped around her neck. It wasn't too much to cause her to gasp for breath. It must have been something in his head that snapped. To be out in the cold with no senses that can put together the pieces. She saw his eyes, blank and scared, but the rain was pounding and the fingers around her neck was getting uncomfortably hot so she grasped for anything next to her. It was her luck that there was a heavy bulk of wood next to the uncut pile. She tried her best not to knock him out, but the blow was too much of her own anger powering the wood. It knocked out his senses that even the pebble like rain couldn't be heard or felt.
The girl was annoyed and his heavy body was pushing her down further into the mud. She pushed him off and sat up in distress.
She brought the boy inside, rested him on a towel covered couch. She took off her coat and left it hanging near the door. Lit the fire-place and stood there for a while. Unraveling her braid and putting it in a high bun, getting the wet pieces out of her face.
The fire was nice but it never filled the entire room. She felt bad about the boy laying on the couch, but his skin wasn't turning blue and seemed better asleep than awake. She dug her hands into her face. The memory of the last three days was building up in her head, reason why she shouldn't listen to people, shouldn't listen to her gut but when she turned around to see the boy sleeping as he didn't just tried to kill her, the problems faded and guilt was more suppressed in her head.
She walked over and pressed her fingers on his temples. His head was warm and she started to feel bad, the rain might have given him a fever.
He was waking up more slowly but she walked to the kitchen to grab a knife incase. What he did was surprising though, he wasn't startled but instead slouched back into the couch and didn't flinch at her putting back the knife. She folded her hands, staring at his dazed behavior. It might have been a concussion instead of a fever. He was licking his lips to beat the hydration. The girl grabbed a cup of water and handed it to him. No arms were lifted so she set it down in front of him.
"Are you O.K?" Her voice was trying her best to be soft, not to anger him again.
He looked around the room, eyes half-opened and avoiding her face.
The girl had a pretty face, a face of a women coming of age but she looked no younger than 20. Her thick eyebrows arched a little down toward her inner eyes, which were greyish blue. She had little bone structure which made her face thin but her cheeks were wide enough to give her those cheekbones, like the boy.
"Maven?"
His look was startled but remained relaxed in the couch. It frightened the girl a little, so calm to what she would believe would be surprising to him. She could try to explain everything but with his erratic behavior, it would be better to wait.
"Maven."
"Where am I?" He licked his upper lip again, she had set the water down but he failed to reach it.
"You're in my house, about fifteen minutes away Auxerre, the nearest town."
"How did I get here-" He stopped. He hissed at a pain that was coming from his back and when he reached his hand out after pressing the area, his fingers where silver.
"Oh shit."
The girl ran to her kitchen and pulled out a case and brought it over to the couch.
"Why, why am I bleeding?"
"Because, you were stabbed in the back."
He stared at her in confusion as if he had no idea there was a deep wound there.
Carefully removing the bandage, cleaning the wound which caused him to squirm, and applying a new bandage.
"Why are you helping me-"
"You should shower."
"But-"
"You're all muddy and you might be catching a fever." He didn't try to speak up but instead took the extra clothes, which were new because he notice the tags. "It's the door behind you."
As he enter the room and the door was shut and locked she removed the towels from the couch and threw them to a corner. She sat down exhausted, and breathed out loud with her hands pressing her head. She thought of her decisions again and what they may lead to and she notice ever since she picked him up, her skin biting got worse.
Maven looked around the bathroom. It was nicer than the house, warmer with cleaner wood walls and a stone shower. When he stepped in the warm water, the water dripped down his hair and though the heat wasn't as warm as he would have liked it, the steam thickened and he felt it on his face. He let the blood on his fingers wash off, the mud on his face wash off and his pain on his back was nonexistent.
He knew putting his face in his hands wouldn't stop the breathing but it did calm him. It did calm his thinking because now there was nothing but a rushed feeling, not recalling his memory besides the stab wound he just remembered.
As the water poured down his face as he lifted it toward the faucet glimpses of the past reentered.
He remembered bleeding at the halls and how some of the water was getting his clothes wet. He remembered the wall was blurry and the girl lying next to him had a pool of blood staining her hair.
The tile on his cheek was cold and wet and his back was numb. While staring at the girl, there were foot steps getting louder and louder and his vision was filling with little dots until it was completely black.
He was trying to remember what the girl was name but then he saw the hair had purple, purple like lightning, purple like Mare. It was Mare that was laying in her own pool of blood, it was Mare that stabbed his back with the envelope opener. As the water fell down his face he couldn't tell if it was small tears or water. He was away from the guard and he made an escape without dying but he left without thinking what he was loosing, even if it was someone that wanted him dead.
Maven thought about Mare being still alive, if the blood was drained out of her body or those foot steps were someone to help her and leave him behind. Maybe the girl saw Mare and helped her too like he did him, but if she was dead that would make him a dead man to Cal because killing her was something even he couldn't let slide by. Maven needed to think smart which meant staying here with the girl until he could figure out what he wanted.
He turned off the shower and put on the clothes. He saw the girl sitting on the couch chewing on her finger nail but once she notice him staring she shot up and folded her hands. She realized that her stance was giving an uncomfortable vibe so she pushed back her hair.
"Are you hungry? I can make something."
"Um sure."
She smiled but in such a concerning way, he hated the feeling of someone feeling pity for him, but he relaxed in the room while she added more wood to the fire. He heard chopping and sizzling and then the room smelt like the dinning hall at White Castle. She handed him a bowl and it was chicken and steamed vegetables with lots of oils and spices. It wasn't something he would eat on a daily base but it was food and his stomach was eating itself at the moment.
As he devoured the cooked carrots and green beans the girl smiled satisfied with her work, calming the beast. She didn't grab a bowl for herself though but sat down at the ugly chair that was next to the sofa. Hands between her thighs and head down, ever so often rolling her eyes toward Maven, who was nearly finished with his food.
"You sure like to stare." Even mouth full it still sounded snarky.
It flustered the girl though and she tightened her lips in response and turned away.
He did feel a little bad for the embarrassment she was feeling, with everything she had done for him.
"Sorry, um-"
"It Nina, and it's O.K, I tend to stare."
"Nina?"
"Well its Antoinette but I liked Nina better."
She was talking as if she hadn't spoken to another person, pushing her hair back and not staring at his eyes until the end of her sentence. Her voice had a very strong Landlaker accent, not like Iris and the other townspeople with harsh slurring and speaking through the nose but her was smooth like water with soft v's and z's replacing her t's.
"Can I ask you a question?" He finished his bowl and sat it down.
"Is it how I found you."
He nodded his head yes.
"Um, I was up in Norta selling some stuff and I heard about some people collecting old relics from the ruins."
"So you stole stuff?"
"No, well I was planning to but I found you in the hall. You were bleeding, like a lot, but still breathing and I don't know, instinctualy felt like I needed to help."
"Was there a girl there too?"
"Um no, only you. Why?"
Why? It didn't matter to her but it mattered to him if Mare was alive because all he remember was laying next to her dying along side.
"How, how do you know my name?"
He was sounding annoyed because his last question wasn't answered they way he wanted it.
"I saw it or read it, um, up here." She pointed at her temple tapping it lightly.
"You're a whisper?"
"A what?"
"You can read minds."
"I mean if that's the name for it then yea, I'm a whisper."
"Then you know who I 'am-"
"Yea, I know who you are and what you've done."
"I-"
"I'm not scared, finding you with a stab wound made me guess you're not looking to go back to Norta."
She was right, he wasn't going back but he left many thing behind yet nothing at all. It was something he was going to have to adjust to. He didn't know how long Nina was going to let him stay but he wasn't going back to Norta. He wasn't going back.